Getting the location of a .tt file in T4

Question

Using T4 I want to generate some code based on examining what files are in a directory relative to the template file being executed.

Is there a way in c# to identify what the path of the current template file is?

Answer 1

• You need to set the hostspecific="true" property of the <#@ template directive to True.
• This will make T4 generate a special property called Host, which gives you access to ResolvePath method and TemplateFile property.
  • Host is of type ITextTemplatingEngineHost.
  • TemplateFile is a String value which is typically the file-system path of the .tt file - however other T4 hosts (i.e. hosts other than Visual Studio) which may load a T4 file in-memory or otherwise may return some other value as the template file doesn't exist on-disk.
• You can find details here: http://www.olegsych.com/2008/02/t4-template-directive/

For example:

<#@ template hostspecific="true" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.IO" #>
<#@ import namespace="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating" #>
<#
    ITextTemplatingEngineHost t4Host = this.Host;
    FileInfo t4FileInfo = new FileInfo( t4Host.TemplateFile );
#>

// This file generated by <#= t4FileInfo.FullName #>